Control
by wade bram wilson
Summary: "I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spat it out" A short piece about Bruce Banner's suicide attempt. I had this written in my head before I got home from the cinema. I hope you can feel how much that line of dialogue meant to me.


Keep control.

Breathe in, deep. Now let it out slowly.

The gun barrel is still hot from the test fire. It tastes like metal and gunpowder against my teeth. Ten years ago, I had never even fired one of these things. I knew how to –of course I knew how to– the physics of it at least… back then I thought I knew everything.

Inhale exhale. Slow and even.

I shouldn't even be thinking right now. I should have pulled that trigger a minute ago. All this thinking, soon I'll get anxiety, panic, then the anger. People wonder where a guy like me puts so much anger, who I direct it at. Can't they see that it's all for me?

So much anger. All those authors and artists and poets, they always describe anger as the colour red, but I know that it's green.

I see flashes sometimes… afterwards, the times I think I have more control. It's always violence through a green filter. I wonder why that is. But I don't care much about the colour, the blood is always red. The fire is always red. The destruction is just _wrong_. I am wrong.

I am nearly gagging on the barrel in the back of my throat so I let it up. I don't want to lose control. I took the gun's safety off a while ago but I am still worried that my finger will slip and I will pull the trigger too early. What is too early? I'm a fucking coward. Useless. Nothing good has ever come of me. I should just pull it now.

It is only a tiny twitch of the finger, but right now it feels like the hardest movement in the world.

I am sweating so much my glasses are slipping down the bridge of my nose. I push them up again with my free hand. But why do I care about seeing right now? My eyes are closed anyway.

Inhale, exhale.

This kind of thing shouldn't have even happened to someone like me. I shouldn't be _this_. Not me. I always kept to the safe things. I never drove over the speed limit, I didn't drink, I didn't even jaywalk for Christ's sake.

Growing up, _succeeding_, my mother and father, all my teachers and peers, they all said, "Bruce, you are going to be somebody." I had it all, my dream job, happiness, success, I even had the girl –a guy like me, can you believe?– but for what? They wouldn't even be able to look at me now. I hope they never have to.

I'm somebody all right. I am a monster. I should have died. But _He_ kept me alive.

I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears now. Easy Bruce, easy. Calm. Control. Inhale exhale.

I should have died then, but I didn't.

But I can fix it now. It's all just white matter, grey matter, cerebral spinal fluid and blood. Neurones and action potentials. Hormones and neurotransmitters. In the end, that's all any of us are, really. It's easy enough to put a bullet in there, right? Just a tiny layer of bone, that's nothing, right? End this torment for good.

No one else should have to suffer for my pride. I can't put any one else at risk.

Calm. Just a bit longer. Stay calm, keep control.

It should be that easy.

And now I am wondering why I let myself –_ourself_– stay alive this long. This is something I should have done a _long_ time ago.

My hand is shaking now and we are too close to the edge. It's getting… It's all blurring now. Faraway. It's getting harder to think… I know it's time. I can't wait any longer… the risk… I can't.

And I do it. But it all comes rushing in that moment. Anger, hate, self-loathing. Green. The blast is deafening between my ears, between my teeth, but there is no pain. Only anger. Only defeat. Then I'm not me anymore, I'm nowhere. I'm a passenger, witness to what we will reap.

oOo

When I wake up. I am in a tide of destruction. Naked and raw. I had the good sense to get out of town… beforehand. But my cabin is in ruins, the forest is like woodchip in our wake. I am lying by the side of a road. He found _a road_. I picked the most remote place I could find, and we manage to find the only place where there might be lives to take.

There are only two cars, nothing more than twisted metal skeletons now, charred husks of their old shapes. Two cars could be… ten people? That could be ten people that we killed.

I want to cry. I want to lose myself in the smouldering wreckage of this tiny remote corner of the world in which we _still _managed to find something worth destroying. But I can't. I pull myself up. I need to hide, to find clothes, shelter. But first there might be survivors. I can already see that the mechanism is too great. No one could survive that impact.

I may be a monster, but I am not that far gone yet. _He_ might not care if the survivors live or die, but right now, it is _all_ that I care about.


End file.
